area51novel Chapter 199 Is it brain? Is it brain?
Chapter 199 Is it brain? Is it brain?
Chapter 199 Is it brain? Is it brain? (Two-part summary)
"Should we follow them and take a look?" Gojo Haru asked, gently waving her folding fan as she looked at Su Wu.
He and Zenji Akira weren't actually interested in the so-called painted-skin ghost, but the boy was definitely extremely interested.
Furthermore... they went there as a precaution.
"Of course, I want to see how an Onmyoji drives away evil spirits," Su Wu said with curiosity and anticipation.
Onmyoji can't possibly fight spirits hand-to-hand like sorcerers, can they?
It mainly involves chanting incantations, forming hand gestures, casting spells, or summoning shikigami to fight against demons and monsters.
His style is more refined, elegant, and debonair than that of a boxing champion... I suppose.
A white figure flew backwards from behind the three of them in a flash.
Gojo Haru, Zenin Akira, Sugiri, Maro, and Sora all made surprisingly similar movements, turning their heads to look back in unison.
That huge person just flew by?
"Is that Akimoto?" Gojo Haru covered the lower half of her face to avoid having her unkind smile seen.
"...Onmyoji...are they that weak?" Su Wu twitched the corner of her mouth.
"That's not how it works. It's Akimoto who's weak, not the Onmyoji," Gojo Haru explained. "Based on strength, that Painted Skin Demon is probably at the Special Grade level, while Akimoto... his strength is probably at the Level 3 Spellcaster."
Level 3...
Su Wu carefully recalled the ranking system for sorcerers. Level three... isn't that equivalent to being a complete failure?
Level 3 fighting Special Grade? Ah... the opponent was lucky to survive, only flying out of the air instead of dying on the spot.
As Gojo Haru and Suguru were talking, several more figures were sent flying backward.
Unlike Akimoto, who was still dressed in white even though he flew backwards, the figure that flew backwards was stained with blood.
It's highly likely to be their own blood, after all... no matter how you look at it, they couldn't possibly harm the Painted Skin Ghost.
The sound of the wall collapsing and bricks flying made a huge commotion.
A group of figures dressed in white hunting robes rushed from the street, ignoring Su Wu and the others, and stormed into the mansion.
Ten minutes later, they came running out one after another, disheveled, as if they had just been beaten.
Kyoto is not a large city, and the residences of nobles are mostly not far apart, so everyone lives in roughly the same area.
So what happened here quickly attracted a lot of people.
There were more fearless nobles than one might imagine, or rather, it wasn't that they weren't afraid of death, but that they knew someone would protect them.
Among this group of Onmyoji, the most powerful fighter is actually a young boy who is not very old.
He possessed abundant spiritual power, and although his appearance was seemingly ordinary, he was actually quite handsome. He had black hair, brown eyes, and wore a red hunting robe, and appeared to be thirteen or fourteen years old.
This guy has the aura of a main character...
And the seemingly cute but actually powerful pet accompanying him? Or is it a shikigami?
"Who is that?" Su Wu's gaze fell on the boy in the red hunting robe.
"That's the youngest son of the Abe family, the grandson of Lord Seimei, I think his name is Abe Masahiro," Gojo Haru said after glancing at him.
Despite being some distance apart, the boy named Abe Masahiro seemed to have overheard their conversation, turning around and shouting, "No grandson!"
He was then hit so hard that he spun three and a half times in the air before landing unconscious.
A woman dressed in a gorgeous black haori walked out of the gate, and waves of blood-red color spread out from her feet, like flower petals.
As if sensing something, she looked up and gazed in the direction where Su Wu was.
With her long, flowing black hair in a Hime cut and her dark eyes, even the moonlight seemed to favor her, making her glow.
"This is really..." Gojo Haru said with a smile.
"So this is what she looks like..." Su Wu couldn't help but sigh, "It's not surprising that she looks like this."
After all, she's the kind of person who makes people lower their guard at first sight and take you home willingly.
She should have such an unparalleled appearance.
"I can't tell if she's a cursed spirit or a demon." Su Wu stood still, watching the non-human being born because of him approach him step by step.
Just as Zenji Akira raised his hand, Gojo Haru stopped him.
"Let's wait and see," Gojo Haru said calmly.
They weren't worried at all about what the painted-skin demon might do to the boy.
"..." Zenji Akira merely frowned and then stopped moving.
Is this guy really that strong?
"...Am I beautiful?" Xiaowei touched her face and looked at the boy in front of her.
She had met the other person before she developed self-awareness.
I've seen the way the other person holds a pen and write, and I've also heard them say, "I hope you won't disappoint me."
"Do your best, Xiaowei."
The newly born and still completely ignorant Xiao Wei did not understand the meaning behind the other party's ambiguous words.
She still doesn't understand.
She simply followed the creator's description, peeling off human skin, eating human hearts, and bathing in human blood to maintain the freshness of her physical body.
"Of course you are beautiful." The white-haired boy reached out and touched the woman's face, speaking with a soft laugh.
"Then... can you give me your heart?" Xiaowei's gaze fell on the boy's chest.
She could feel the faint, vibrant heart beating below.
There was even a premonition that as long as she consumed that powerful, life-giving heart belonging to the creator, it would be enough to free her from her current predicament.
Once the consumption of human hearts and bathing in human blood cease, the physical body will rot.
Xiao Wei felt hunger, the first time she had ever felt such intense hunger since birth.
She couldn't help but open her mouth and make a swallowing motion.
"Demons and ghosts... they really are greedy creatures." Su Wu pinched her face with one hand and sighed softly.
Even knowing that he was the one who created her, her first reaction was... to eat him.
Su Wu was not surprised by this, after all... no one knew better than him that the person in front of him named Xiao Wei, who had a beautiful appearance that was rare in the world, was actually just a monster.
A monster devoid of emotion and reason, existing only in human skin.
She will not feel sad, upset, or happy.
She was only hungry.
What sustained her will to move was hunger.
He himself attributed such characteristics to the other party, so how could he call the other party an ungrateful wretch?
Besides, he had never raised her.
Su Wu desired creatures without human characteristics, and so Xiao Wei, born from him, was thus a pure non-human.
Even demons and cursed spirits have feelings for each other.
"I'm so hungry..." Xiaowei murmured.
Her expression remained indifferent, showing little emotion throughout.
"You won't be hungry anymore soon," Su Wu said with a smile, her expression surprisingly gentle.
Along with this almost illusory tenderness, flames erupted from his palm.
The Painted Skin Ghost... her greatest fear in life is fire, which will burn away her human skin.
His palm was pressed against the woman's cheek, and the moment the flames burst forth, they burned away most of her face.
"Ah—" Xiaowei screamed and waved his hand away, touching her face in disbelief.
Her black gown was engulfed in flames, and she found herself surrounded by a sea of fire.
The burning pain, and the fact that it was all done by her own creator, filled her heart with agony and bewilderment.
Why?
If... you were going to kill her, why did you let her be born in the first place?
"..." Her eyes, now just two black holes from being burned, stared in the direction of the boy, her mouth agape as if she wanted to say something.
But then she saw the boy curl his lips into a smile, and her head rolled off, unable to utter another sound.
"Do your best and don't let me down."
"You're the character I was supposed to leave when I first appeared."
In the fleeting images before her death, Xiaowei recalls the boy writing her story while speaking in words she couldn't understand.
She never understood until her death.
The monster that exists by relying on human skin will naturally have nothing left after the human skin is burned.
Kong sneezed, creating a small tornado.
With a gust of wind, even the painted-skin ghost was reduced to ashes.
Having struggled to wake up and get up from the ground, Abe Masahiro looked at this scene and wished he was still dreaming.
What? It's over just like that?
Is that a sorcerer over there? The Onmyoji...lost again?
"The scene seems a bit lacking in grandeur..." Su Wu sighed.
No one spoke, making everything seem quite ordinary.
Sure enough, what he did was too bland.
They should pretend to fight with Xiaowei, destroy half of Kyoto's buildings, and then deal with Xiaowei.
This makes the scene look cooler and also shows that they are all very strong.
The problem is finding a way to avoid killing Xiaowei all at once...
Although Xiaowei was rated as a Special Grade, her strength was only just enough to qualify her as a Special Grade.
Su Wu's strength is classified as Special Grade because the highest level is only Special Grade.
Just like Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna, their Special Grade strength is not on the same level as other Special Grade strength.
"It seems the Gojo family has gained another talented member," a man dressed in purple said as he stepped forward.
Her earlobes were large, but the most noticeable feature was... the suture line on her forehead.
Su Wu slowly narrowed her eyes.
The six-eyed creature can see the trajectory of energy, but it cannot see through it.
Therefore, he had no way of seeing whether there was a brain with a mouth hidden inside the other person's sutured brain.
No wonder the other party dared to appear in front of Gojo Haru, who has six eyes.
"Why are you here?" Zenin Akira seemed to know this person very well.
"Of course we've come to see you, Master. What's the meaning of the Zenin family head always running off to the Gojo family?" said the man with stitches on his forehead.
Judging from this, is this guy from the Zen family?
If I remember correctly, the other party seems to have been a member of the Kamo family in the manga?
Indeed, interesting techniques are remarkable; they frequently switch bodies for fun.
This guy has probably used the bodies of all three members of the original family.
"Tch, I know, let's go back," Zenji Akira said with a sneer.
At this moment, the Onmyoji who had been staring in disbelief also came to their senses and ran over with the intention of finding out why the sorcerer had gained another capable fighter.
"Lord Qing, who is this?" They looked at the boy beside them.
She has white hair, white eyebrows, and white eyelashes just like Gojo Haru, except that her eyes are not blue.
Thank goodness, there can only be one Six-Eyed in this generation. If the Gojo family had two Six-Eyed, what would that be like?
With one six-eyed person, the Gojo family already felt like they were on top of the world.
He looks like an adult; is he Gojo Haru's son?
During the Heian period, a boy was considered an adult at the age of twelve, and after the coming-of-age ceremony, he was of marriageable age, had children, and could start working.
Su Wu was 1.85 meters tall and looked much older than twelve. In the eyes of these people in the Heian period, she was obviously already an adult.
"The younger generation in the family," Gojo Haru said cryptically.
The younger generation in the family—it didn't specify when they were from. Why not include those from a thousand years later?
Although... there is another possibility: that the other party will also have no connection with the Gojo family a thousand years later.
But by then, I would have long since returned to dust and ashes, so why would I care about what would happen to future generations?
More than these boring things, he was concerned about the boy who called himself Gojogiri.
How interesting! A six-eyed boy who has traveled across a thousand years has met his six-eyed counterpart from a thousand years ago.
Thinking of this, Gojo Haru's smile became even more genuine.
"...The Gojo family really is... full of talented people..." The Onmyoji who came up to ask the question had an expression that seemed to be a mixture of jealousy and envy.
How come there's such a powerful guy in the Gojo family? Why don't they have one in their family?
Six-Eyed was also born into the Gojo family, so it seems the Gojo family gets all the good things, right?
"Perhaps God favors us more," Gojo Haru said with a half-smile.
He knew what these people were thinking, and he didn't mind hurting them a little more.
The Onmyoji present all wore expressions of gloom.
"What is this person's name?" someone asked again, unwilling to give up.
"Mist-kun, Gojo Mist." Gojo Haru said with a smile.
"This... I don't think I've heard of this name in Kyoto before, and these clothes..." Their gazes fell on the boy's clothing.
Compared to the loose hunting robes and haori worn by the people in front of him, the boy's clothes were more form-fitting, making him appear tall and slender.
It is definitely not clothing from Kyoto.
"Kirigiri-kun..." Gojo Haru was speechless for a moment.
The Gojo family did prepare clothes for the boy to wear in this era, but... the boy didn't like them.
They complain that modern clothes are too bulky, making them look like balls, and that they've gained an extra 100 pounds for no reason.
So the other person has always been wearing my clothes.
"I come from the Tang Dynasty, and these are clothes from there," the white-haired youth said casually.
The nobles of the Heian period admired the culture of the Tang Dynasty.
So after Su Wu said that, no one paid attention to his clothes anymore.
People are curious about the situation in the Tang Dynasty.
And... how come the younger generation of the Gojo family came from the Tang Dynasty?
Those from the Tang Dynasty are definitely better than those from here.
"Shall we go together?" Zenin Akira asked Gojo Haru, standing beside the oxcart.
Su Wu looked at the oxcart beside the other person and fell into deep thought.
In ancient China, nobles would never have ridden in oxcarts, would they? They would have considered it beneath them.
These things are usually done by ordinary people in the countryside.
However, in Heian-kyo (Kyoto), riding in an oxcart was considered an honor and a symbol of status.
I don't understand, but I respect it.
There's no need for you to sit there yourself.
"We can go back on our own." Su Wu preferred to use Cang or sit on Kong's body.
Riding a white tiger doesn't look as cool as riding an oxcart?
Fortunately, there were many sorcerers and onmyoji in Heian-kyo, and people had seen many demons and ghosts. They adapted well to the enormous Byakko, treating it as Su-mu's shikigami and did not do anything else.
(End of this chapter)